by Tris Hussey on January 2, 2010 · 21 comments
in Blogging, Blogging 101, Books, Business blogs, Cool tools, Featured, Internet Life, Multimedia blogs, Personal blogs, Portfolio blogs, Social Media, Using WordPress, Web 2.0, WordPress
Even though it’s been the holiday season, work on Using WordPress hasn’t slowed down only a wee bit. Several of the initial chapters are now in the loving hands of my editors and I’m proceeding full steam ahead. Since crowd sourcing works pretty darn well for getting feedback, commentary, and information, I’m looking for a bit of help with the next chapter in the book: WordPress Plugins.
Us WordPress.org/DIY install users know that there are thousands of WP plugins out there to try. Lots of plugins do the same thing and [...]
Tagged as:
Blogging,
Blogging 101,
Social Media,
Web 2.0,
WordPress 2.9,
WordPress plugins,
WordPress tips,
WordPress.org
Public or private. Tell the world, tell a few, tell no one. This is one aspect of social media that I constantly struggle with in my life. This evening Raul, Guacira Naves, and I were chatting about this very topic this evening at Blenz. The three of us all have our own stories of the good and bad of public disclosure. I think it’s safe to say the three of us agree that there are no easy answers. By happenstance when I got home what did I find in my [...]
Tagged as:
privacy,
public-private,
Social Media,
Technology
by Tris Hussey on December 19, 2009 · 4 comments
in About the book, Cool tools, Create Your Own Blog, Daddy Wears Slippers to Work, Featured, Mind Mapping, Teaching, Technology, Tips and Tricks, Using WordPress
Remember those days in high school when you were learning how to write term papers? My very well-meaning teachers tried to get us to use notecards and create outlines, anything to help us write better organized papers with the correct citation in the bibliography.
And I hated and chafed at every, single moment of it. While having notecards is actually a good organizational tool, my nascent writer’s brain couldn’t latch on to them as anything more than a royal pain. Even then, and probably more so than now, my chaotic, in-the-data-cloud [...]
Tagged as:
Mind Mapping,
Teaching,
Technology,
Writing,
writing tips
by Tris Hussey on December 18, 2009 · 7 comments
in Blogging, Cool tools, Create Your Own Blog, Featured, Internet Life, Personal blogs, Photography, Podcasting, Portfolio blogs, Technology, Using WordPress, Web 2.0, WordPress
This afternoon WordPress 2.9 went from Release Candidate to just plain old released and, yeah this is a good one. I’ve been using 2.9 in it’s early beta incarnations for months now and have been quite happy with it. I haven’t noticed a huge improvement in speed or stability, but then again I’m not benchmarking it, I’m just using it. Oh and writing about it, of course.
For my money, there are two great features that make this a great update. The first is the new built-in image editor. No, you [...]
Tagged as:
Blogging,
Podcasting,
Technology,
Untitled,
Web 2.0,
WordPress 2.9,
WordPress 3.0,
WordPress tips,
WordPress updates,
WordPress.org
When Twitter added lists not only was there a race to build (and get on) lists, but Twitter clients to add support for them. Over the past few weeks I’ve watched Hootsuite, Nambu, and others add Twitter Lists support all the while waiting for my favourite Twitter tool, TweetDeck to add support. This morning the wait is over and I think TweetDeck has upped the ante for all Twitter clients, and they did it by making themselves less essential, but more valuable at the same time.
One of the things I’ve [...]
Tagged as:
Lifestreaming,
Social Media,
tweetdeck,
Twitter clients,
Twitter Lists,
Web 2.0
by Tris Hussey on November 29, 2009 · 6 comments
in Blogging, Blogging 101, Cool tools, Create Your Own Blog, Featured, Internet Life, Social Media, Teaching, Web 2.0, WordPress
Yes, you read that correctly, WordPress isn’t the best CMS out there. WordPress is, however, the CMS I like best. My BCIT class on Thursday afternoons is one of those great groups of students that everyone should have the opportunity to teach. They challenge me constantly. No, not in a disrespectful way, in an intelligent way. They challenge me to challenge myself and learn more so I can teach them more (hence all my experimentation with Subversion).
This week, for example, I was working through the WordPress theme structure with a [...]
Tagged as:
Blogging,
Blogging 101,
blogging tools,
Social Media,
Teaching,
Web 2.0,
WordPress Classes,
WordPress tips
This week I asked Chris Breikss of 6S Marketing to talk to my class about what he looks for in potential employees (and ostensibly interns as well). Beyond the standard resume and cover letter advice (check spelling and grammar), he said something that made the entire class sit up and take notice: the Facebook Test.
Not only does Chris and his team look in the usual places (Google search, Twitter, blogs) but also Facebook … and with this little FB app called “Photo Stalker”, he can also see if you have [...]
Tagged as:
Facebook,
privacy,
Social Media
I’ve known I’ve wanted to teach for over 20 years, ever since the beginning of my undergrad days. While I used to think of teaching as my “fall back” job, I know now that teaching is something that I must do to be happy. When I teach, one of my core beliefs is that tech is not scary and anyone can learn it, which is why when I see first hand techies taking advantage of non-techies I get really pissed.
Yesterday I was teaching a second day at the Venture Program [...]
Tagged as:
tech support
Tris Hussey is a writer, teacher, blogger, and speaker on all facets of Internet life, WordPress, and social media. He is the author of Create Your Own Blog: 6 Easy Blogging Projects to Start Blogging Like a Pro and Using WordPress.
